CHAPTER ONE

The moon shone brightly between the thick clouds that occupied the shadowy night sky of Konoha. In the middle of the vast plain were two blurs continuously colliding together. To the naked eye, you could see just flashes, but to someone with the trained eye of a ninja, you would recognize the dark haired jounin and the green eyed boy of the Sand country. You would also see that they were not fighting aggressively, but fighting with wide smirks plastered on their face, their eyes never leaving each other.

Sasuke was staring at his stoic lover; he was drenched from the rain but he didn't feel it. All he knew was that he had to win the fight. Suddenly in the midst of thinking to himself, the pale boy had just enough time to comprehend what was happening as he saw a red blur fly past him and turned just in time to duck a spike of sand directed at his head. Sasuke was sighing with relief of having such good reflexes and the Sharingan to help him when he was roughly pushed to the ground face first and felt a warm presence resting above him and driving his further into the soft mud. There was a warm sensation against the crook of his neck and a tickle in his ear as he heard Gaara whisper in a proud tone, "I won...I get the top tonight," and the presence disappeared, leaving Sasuke's back to feel the impact of the cold night. Sasuke smiled to the dirt as he lifted himself to his feet and slowly trudged after his lover back to their apartment. He had lost the fight, but he would still get his way, he knew for sure.

"Sasuke-kun! Over here!"

Sasuke had no sleep that night and was extremely tired, but he forced himself to act normally and proceed as usual. He couldn't let anyone knew that he had stayed up all night with his playful lover, ensuring that he got his fair share of pleasure.

Sasuke turned to where the familiar voice was approaching from. From the ramen stand he saw the familiar faces of his team mates. Before advancing towards them, Sasuke hesitated, questioning himself whether he would want to eat…no, be forced to eat ramen with his baka male team mate, but eventually found himself on a stool in between Sakura and the dobe.

"Oi, Bastard...Are you...umm...gonna eat that?" questioned the blonde haired boy, scratching the back of his head and grinning in a childish, amusing manner.

"Dobe. Have it, i do have my health to consider, unlike you," replied the dark haired boy with an annoyed tone.

"HEEHEE. THANKS SASUKE-TEME" yelled Naruto – intentionally ignoring the piercing look directed towards him – as he slurped up Sasuke's chicken ramen, and then started cunningly eyeing off Sakura's unfinished bowl.

Sakura caught the greedy look in her team mate's eyes and hesitantly pushed her bowl towards him, carefully avoiding the stack of bowls in front of him.

He muttered a murmur of thanks to his ramen and left Sakura and Sasuke to their private conversations. Until he finished his ramen at least.

"So, Sasuke. Has he been sleeping more?" Sakura cautiously asked (not saying his name to be subtle), knowing that Gaara's health was rocky ground to be stepping on with Sasuke. He never told anyone, especially not Gaara himself, but he was constantly worried about how Gaara was doing. Before they became lovers, Gaara restricted himself to life without sleep, afraid of the nightmares, which troubled Sasuke deeply and forced him to comfort the emotional boy at no matter what time of the night. Sakura, being his team mate (and also having the advantage of having observed his every movement during her teenage years of obsession) could read the dark boys emotions as plain as a book.

"Hn, he's getting them less often," was all that Sasuke replied, knowing that the pink haired shinobi would get his underlying meaning. He avoided his teammate's eyes and looked the direction of Naruto who was just finishing the last bowl of ramen.

Even till this day, Sasuke couldn't believe what a handsome man Naruto had grown to be opposed to the short, immature blonde whom he had once known. That was the last time Sasuke saw him before leaving to revenge his clan and family; to slay his brother. It amazed Sasuke that in just three years Naruto had grown so powerful and different, yet stayed so familiar. He was still that same cheerful boy he had been, but now he held an air of confidence, of maturity and had grown in ways beyond belief.

"Saasuukee, I have no moneeyy. Can you please pay for me today, and I promise to pay you back tomorrow? Please," begged the boy, using a kicked puppy dog tone and widening his already huge blue eyes, his hand slowly rubbing against Sasuke's thigh.

Sasuke struggled to keep a straight face as he felt Naruto's hand sliding further up his leg. He attempted to put on an annoyed face, but managed to create a face accurate to one who had just been hit with the popular "1000 years of pain"(also known as a kancho).

"You better pay me back, or you won't ever see another bowl of ramen again," he threatened, stuttering slightly (but smoothly covering it up so no one noticed) as he felt the blonde slowly rub the bulge that had formed in his pants.

Sakura took this point to turn around and find Ino, to make sure that she was still alive. When Sasuke started dating the boy from Sand village after he came back from his journey, Ino found it hard to believe that after all her hard work on fighting over her best-friend for the brooding boy was a waste as he was more interested in fondling amongst the same sex.

Unlike her loud mother friend, Sakura was more relaxed with her former-love's choice of gender. After ignoring her desperate attempts to make him like her, she gave up and decided he was just for show, and that there were plenty of better men who were desperately fawning over her newly developed body (although being the smart one out of Team Seven, she also was known for her vivid imagination, which frequently ran away with her at times).

As Sakura left she heard a howl of pain emitting from behind her. She didn't need to turn around and look to tell that Sasuke had decided that it was enough and had punched Naruto in his angelic face. She decided to fasten her get away before Naruto started getting her involved, which was exactly what she didn't want to do: get on the bad side of Sasuke.

Just before getting out of ear shot she heard the familiar voice of Naruto's favourite form, sexy-no-jutsu. From that point on, she ran.